2024-08-13: Gold, Wildlife, and Views

Darrell woke up early, got cleaned up, had breakfast at the hotel and walked over to pick up a rental car from the Avis location in downtown Anchorage. While he was picking up the car, the rest of the family got cleaned up and had breakfast. Patrick was starting to feel unwell this morning. We took the car over to Safeway and grabbed him some cold meds to help get him through the day. Then we picked up Tim from his VRBO.

We headed out of town and drove to the Crow Creek Gold Mine. The Mine is just outside of Girdwood, Alaska and is about a one hour drive from Anchorage. Darrell spotted a moose on the side of the road just outside of Anchorage. Everyone else missed it unfortunately. We arrived at the mine around 10:30am. There is an old mining village that you can walk through and they had gold panning for those that would like to do it. We elected to do the panning so were given a demonstration on how to do it in a practice tank. They give you a pouch with “pay dirt” in it that you pan through. The pay dirt has a few flakes of gold that you have to find and then get to keep. After doing the practice, we walked through the buildings on display on our way to Crow Creek. Once at the creek, you are able to pan for gold along the banks of the creek. We spent some time there trying to find some more gold, but we all came up empty. The experience was fun though. After a quick stop at the gift shop, we loaded back into the car and headed back towards Girdwood.

We were getting hungry at this point so made a stop at Subway to grab some lunch. Michael and Amanda had a huckleberry ice cream from the store next door before we continued on our way. Our next stop was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. It was about a 30 minute drive from the mine.

We spent the next couple of hours exploring the conservation center. They had a bunch of animals at the center including black bears, brown bears, wood buffalo, foxes, wolves, coyotes, caribou, reindeer, elk, muskox, deer, porcupines, lynx, an owl, and an eagle. It was cool to see some of these animals up close.

After exploring the conservation center, we went for a drive to the Alyeska Ski Resort. They have a tram that takes skiers and hikers up the mountain. We went up the tram which is about a 5 minute ride and takes you up 2300 feet. The views from the top were amazing. We could see three glaciers at the tops of nearby mountains and had views down to the sea. We spent 30 to 45 minutes admiring the views before taking the tram back down.

We drove back to Anchorage which took a little less than an hour. By this point, Patrick was not feeling well at all. We dropped him off at the hotel so he could get some rest and headed out to find some dinner for the rest of us. It was after 7:00pm at this point. We had a heck of a time finding a restaurant that had room for us. We tried a couple of different places, but they were a good 30 minute wait to get in. We ended up driving out of downtown and went to Spenard Roadhouse. It was after 8:00 now and it was still a 15 minute wait to get in. We enjoyed our meal at the restaurant. Darrell and Tim ordered pizza that had reindeer sausage in it. Amanda ordered jambalaya that also had salmon, shrimp, and also had reindeer sausage in it. We ordered Patrick some food to go so we could bring it back to the hotel for him.

We dropped Tim off at his VRBO and returned to the hotel. Patrick ate quickly and then we all went to bed.